System ID unavailable

Upon firing up my MFD 8 today I get a box just above the Navigation warning box that tells me my System id is unavailable and gives the number in brackets. It told me my charts would be available during the next 28 launches, I have now restarted the thing including one time of disconnecting the power twice so upon shut down today it is at 26. The chart did work although some of the options with the roto key are missing and the tabs are much smaller than normal. At first I was able to push the roto key to confirm but now the screen has almost dimmed to nothing and the okay box is just a black bar. All the icons in the top right of the screen have a red x through them. My radar hot pages are gone and it is not supplying my VHF with navigation data.

I have not updated to the latest version but I don't see why that would matter. It worked fine yesterday but not today. Tides and currents are off. It was purchased in late February 2011 so it will now have about 800 hours on it.

Can someone please tell what is wrong with this thing this time and how do I solve it.

Thanks
Dave

It sounds like your boot-up configuration got damaged. I recommend running the setup wizard (do not hit SKIP) and check all your setup settings then "save and exit". If the radar or sounder still has an "X" then select them as a source under the normal menu. (ie menu - radar - general tab - select your radar source at the top)

If you still have problems please directly contact your Furuno Distributor or dealer for assistance. If you are in the Furuno USA area:
You can reach us via phone M-F from 8am to 5pm at the following numbers.
East Coast 410-479-4420
West Coast 360-834-9300
If you are located on the east coast you can reach someone from 8am to 8pm due to the time difference between the two offices

It is always recommend to update the unit operation system to the newest to ensure best possible operations and system enhancements.

Thanks for the response.

In the end the MFD 8, the only on I have decided on it's own that is was a slave not the master. Setting it back to master was the easy part but during this issue it decided to wipe out all my settings including the 3 ports. Almost like doing a master reboot but not quite. Crazy things like changing the viewing angle from normal to upper. I think I have it up and running again but I would like to know why it did this. Is there something that is just starting to die that I can get fixed before this happens again, especially if I'm out in the dark and fog.

Dave

First off it sounds like it has old software where the night mode can be set to "AUTO". If a customer fails to setup the time offset correctly, in the older programmed units, it would dim down automatically when Europe starts getting dark. It is just doing what it is told to do.

When powering down the unit, you should wait about 1 minute before turning off breakers because, although the screen looks off, the unit still saves data to the system memory. If someone in a rush, shuts off the boat while this is in progress; you will mess up the software configuration.

Another possibility (again caused by old software) is that the unit has crashed due to leaving the tides and currents icons turned on for very long periods of time. This really beats up the processor, because there are thousands of tide and current icons being calculated in real time. This can be resolved simply but using the free software and instructions posted on our web site, and upgrade the machine.